Matthew Michael Carnahan
Drew Goddard
Mireille Enos
James Badge Dale
Matthew Fox
J. Michael Straczynski
Brad Pitt
Dede Gardner
Jeremy Kleiner
Matt Chesse
Hemisphere Media Capital
GK Films
Plan B Entertainment
World War z is a 2013 disaster film based on a zombie pandemic. The film stars Brad Pitt as the main character.
Synopsis[]
A former United Nations investigator must travel the world to find a way to stop a zombie pandemic.
Plot[]
A worldwide zombie outbreak erupts in several metropolitan areas around the world; those bitten by the creatures become zombies themselves. Former UN investigator Gerry Lane, his wife Karin, and their two daughters manage to escape the outbreak in Philadelphia and take shelter with a Hispanic family in Newark, while waiting for special evacuation the next day thanks to Gerry's friend UN Deputy Secretary-General Thierry Umutoni. Their hosts choose not to accompany them when they flee the next day, and are subsequently killed by zombies. Their son, Tommy, manages to escape, and Gerry's family takes him in. They are flown to an offshore U.S. Navy carrier group where Umuntoni is overseeing the remaining worldwide governments' reactions.
The scientists there believe they must find the first case of the zombie outbreak, believed to be in South Korea. A team is dispatched to go, and Gerry is coerced into going with them under the threat of having his family sent to a potentially unsafe mainland refugee camp. The team lands at Camp Humphreys, where the surviving soldiers hold back zombie attacks: the zombies are fast and vicious, and once bitten, a person turns within seconds. Gerry learns that a Korean doctor was the first to come down with the rabies-like infection, after being bitten by a soldier he was treating whom local villagers had captured when he tried to attack them. A former CIA operative held at the base reveals that Israel had reacted a week before the outbreak, building giant walls around Jerusalem, and suggests that Gerry talk to Mossad agent Jurgen Warmbrunn.
Gerry is flown to Jerusalem and is brought to Warmbrunn. The Mossad agent reveals they had intercepted a message from the Indian army on fighting the rakshasa ("zombies"). He and other Israeli experts convinced the government to build the wall to protect themselves. As Gerry is escorted back to his plane by the IDF, zombies are drawn to the loud music playing in the city and pile themselves against the wall, forming a mound of bodies that allows many to clear the wall. As the city is quickly overtaken by zombies, Warmbrunn is set upon and killed by zombies as Gerry and the IDF members battle their way to escape. On their way, Gerry notices that the zombies avoid attacking an old man, and in another instance, a young feeble boy. A zombie bites Gerry's IDF escort and he quickly amputates her hand, which prevents her from being infected. Eventually, Gerry and the same female IDF member, who only identifies herself as Segen , are able to board the last passenger jet leaving the city.
Gerry recounts the zombie attacks and remembers seeing sick, injured, and elderly people passed over by the zombie hordes, which leads him to believe this is evidence of some remedy. He contacts Umuntoni to help convince the pilots to take them to Cardiff where an operational WHO facility is located. Nearing approach, a single zombie is discovered on the plane, and most of the passengers are quickly infected and converted. Seeing no other option, Gerry uses a grenade from Segen's pack to rupture the cabin and blow out the zombies, but this also causes the plane to crash. Gerry and Segen survive, though Gerry is impaled by a piece of shrapnel. They make their way to the WHO facility, where Gerry blacks out.
Gerry wakes up a few days later, nursed back to health. He contacts Umuntoni to help convince the WHO employees of his identity, but learns that Karin and his family were shipped to the mainland, as they believed he had died in the plane crash. Gerry explains his theory that the zombies ignore the infirm for the healthy, and suggests injecting themselves with a deadly but curable disease to mask themselves from the zombies. The WHO scientists agree but point out the pathogens are located in one of the zombie-infected labs. Gerry, Segen, and another WHO scientist carefully work through the infested labs but are detected. Segen and the WHO scientist get to safety, while Gerry finds himself in the vault with the pathogens, cornered by a zombie. Without the ability to identify the strains in storage, many of which could kill him, Gerry injects himself with one of the samples and finds himself still alive.
His hypothesis is proven correct as the zombie obviously sees him but does not attack, allowing him to walk back to safety with more samples. Gerry is then treated for the disease.
In a voice-over, Gerry explains they were able to use these diseases to create a masking agent, allowing them to rescue refugees still trapped by zombies and fight against them; he says they still have a long way to win the war, but there is hope. The final scene shows Gerry and Segen being taken to the mainland refugee camp where Gerry is reunited with his family.
List of Disasters[]
- Zombie Epidemic
Cast[]
- Brad Pitt as Gerry Lane, a former United Nations investigator who is coerced into returning in order to investigate the pandemic that is spiraling out of control across the globe.
- Mireille Enos as Karin Lane, Gerry's wife and mother of their two children.
- Daniella Kertesz as an Israeli soldier known only as "Segen", who accompanies Gerry during their escape from Israel.
- Fana Mokoena as Thierry Umutoni, the UN Deputy Secretary General.
- James Badge Dale as Captain Speke, a U.S. Army Ranger stationed at Camp Humphreys, South Korea.
- David Morse as a former CIA operative imprisoned at Camp Humphreys for selling weapons to North Korea.
- Ludi Boeken as Jurgen Warmbrunn, the Director of Mossad; responsible for preparing Israel's pre-emptive defences.
- Matthew Fox as a U.S. Air Force Pararescueman sent by Thierry Umutoni to rescue the Lanes in Newark.
- Sterling Jerins as Constance Lane, Gerry and Karin's younger daughter.
- Abigail Hargrove as Rachel Lane, Gerry and Karin's older daughter.
- John Cena as Gerry Lane's sister.
Music[]
World War Z (Soundtrack) redirects here.
Production[]
Development[]
The film is based on the book with the same name written by Max Brooks. Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment secured the screen rights to the novel in 2007 after a bidding war with Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way.
An early edition of the script was released in March, 2008, and it was announced that the script would be re-written by Matthew Michael Carnahan. In 2010, it was revealed that Brad Pitt would play the main character at the San Diego Comic Con.
Filming[]
On a budget of $125 million, World War Z began principal photography in July 2011 in Malta, with the first images of production being released a few days later. Filming was set to move to Glasgow, Scotland in August with the production company looking to recruit 2,000 local extras for the shoot. At least 3,000 people showed up at a casting call in Glasgow on July 9, hoping for the opportunity to appear in a scene set in a financial district in Philadelphia. Scenes were also shot in Falmouth, Cornwall. Also in July 2011, Game of Thrones actor Elyes Gabel was cast as a character named Fassbach.
Reception[]
Release and Box Office[]
The film was released on the 21st June 2013. World War Z grossed $202,359,711 in North America, and $337,648,165 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $540,007,876. Variety called it a bona-fide box office hit.
Outside North America, the film earned $5.7 million on its opening day (Thursday, June 20, 2013 and $45.8 million on its opening weekend, ranking in third place.
Sequel[]
In January 2012, director Forster and Paramount said that "each view World War Z as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of Matt Damon's Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC's The Walking Dead".[91] Plans for future installments were shelved due to the film's production troubles.[92] In June 2013, after the successful opening of World War Z, Paramount announced that it was moving ahead with a sequel. In December 2013, it was reported that Juan Antonio Bayona was chosen to direct the sequel. In May 2014, Steven Knight was set to write the script of the sequel.
Trivia[]
- World War Z is the highest-grossing film of Brad Pitt's career.
- "Segen" in Hebrew literally means "Lieutenant".
- A total of 85 prop machine guns, rifles and pistols to be used for scenes filmed in Hungary, were confiscated by counter-terrorism customs officers in Budapest, Hungary after being flown in from London. Hungarian authorities said the guns could be activated by removing the screws filling the end of the barrels. Hungarian law requires weapons to be deactivated only if the process is irreversible. The movie's weapons supervisor, 'Bela Gajdos', commented that a permit for the weapons had been issued by Hungarian police. Reports claimed that main actor Brad Pitt was "furious" at the seizure but producers said it had not delayed filming.
- A storyline that was deleted featured Gerry's wife having an affair with the para jumper from the helicopter from the rescue scene earlier in the film.